When the Snow Turns Red (3)
“Everyone’s gone now. It feels a little empty.”
“They’ll probably be back by sunset. Stay put, all right?”
“...Do you think the knight will be all right? I don’t know why, but I have a bad feeling about this.”
I watched Ropena frown as she stared out the window, then turned my gaze to the view beyond the glass. The sun, hanging high overhead, was slowly sinking, and the snow beneath it began to glitter like scattered jewels.
Snow lay in thick layers atop the fir trees rising into the sky, and the whole mountain looked so beautiful it might have been lifted straight from a painted landscape. Yet beneath that quiet beauty, something faint and uneasy stirred in my chest.
My heart fluttered for no reason at all. The tea in the cup I held shivered into tiny ripples, and the breath that slipped from my lips as I looked down at it was a cold one.
“He’ll be fine.”
It was only a murmur, meant to reassure myself rather than anyone else. Ropena’s glance brushed me and then vanished again. It was only the Hunting Festival, after all.
Wasn’t it just an event for hunting beasts and weak monsters? Nothing had ever happened during the festival before, so this feeling had to be nothing more than a foolish premonition.
As I absentmindedly smoothed my dress, a strange emptiness tugged at me, and I realized the handkerchief I always kept with me was gone. Hadn’t I given it to Evan?
Thinking of the handkerchief I had given him to soothe his unease about the festival, I remembered what he had said, and my eyes narrowed.
“Do you know what it means when you give someone this?”
I had thought it was nothing more than a wish for a knight’s safety. Had I not given him the white handkerchief I always carried, so it would not turn red with blood?
Could what he had said have meant something else entirely?
The question that rose in my mind would not leave me alone, so I spoke to Ropena, who was still blankly staring out the window.
“Ropena, do you know what it means to tie a handkerchief around someone’s wrist?”
“...A handkerchief? Are you thinking of giving one to someone?”
“No, I was just curious.”
Whatever she was thinking, Ropena covered her mouth and snickered before finally answering.
“You give it to someone you love. So they’ll remember you forever.”
“...What?”
My eyes flew wide open. The emotions surging through them were shock, then embarrassment. I was so stunned I could scarcely remember ever being so startled in my life; the hand holding my teacup trembled hard enough to rattle.
It was something you did for someone you loved? Sir Chris had never said anything like that to me.
“Sir Chris.”
“Hm, I suppose that sort of thing does exist.”
Even after I shot him a cold look, he only shrugged and smiled as if nothing had happened.
My brow furrowed deeply. If I scolded him now, he would surely realize that I had tied a handkerchief onto Evan, so I drew in a breath and let it out with difficulty.
I covered my suddenly burning face with my hand. When I rubbed both hands over my flushed cheeks, I felt Ropena looking at me with obvious curiosity, and I slowly parted my lips.
“...I didn’t know it had that kind of meaning.”
“Who did you give a handkerchief to? You’re acting really weird...”
“I haven’t given one to anyone.”
My curt reply cut the conversation short.
If I had known it carried such a meaning, I would have been more careful before giving it away. When he’d asked whether I knew what it meant, he must have recognized the original significance of the gesture.
I pressed hard against the throbbing at my temple, and with the sharp ache came the closing of my eyes.
To hand something to someone you love. The words seemed so unlike me that a dry laugh slipped out before I could stop it.
If he had told me the true meaning then, I would have been in quite a predicament. I supposed he had spared me on purpose by not explaining it.
It only made me wonder all the more whether I should keep someone so considerate always at my side. Could someone like us really remain together? Bound only by the unremarkable connection between a bodyguard knight and a princess, and yet Evan Fried had already had a far greater impact on me than that relationship ought to allow.
I had never felt anything special when looking at others, and I had even despised my own fiancé—so how was it that I could be so at ease with one particular person?
Whenever I thought of my bodyguard knight, who had by now become as comfortable and familiar as Ropena, my chest would tingle faintly and I would end up frowning without meaning to.
Love. It was still a word that lay far beyond my reach.
I knew I still was not ready to give my whole heart to someone and hold them in my arms. Someday, perhaps, that day would come—but it was not today.
If I were to fall in love, who would it be with?
What came to mind all at once was that deep green gaze, and with another sigh I turned back toward the window.
The Verdeng Mountain, buried under white snow. Looking at that silent mountain ought to have brought me peace of mind.
So why did my unease only deepen the longer I looked? It had to be nothing more than pointless worry. He was the same man who had once cut down a black mage, after all.
I imagined for a moment the sight of him returning in his usual manner, quietly handing back the handkerchief when no one was looking, and then I tore my gaze away. The black tea in my cup looked strangely red today, almost like blood, and I frowned slightly.
#
My movements as I climbed the mountain were without hesitation.
That boom I had just heard, and the scream that followed it—by themselves, they might have suggested a beast attack, but the mana I felt through my senses was unmistakably the darkness wielded by a black mage.
And yet it was still too soon to conclude that a black mage was truly here. This was denser mana than the darkness I had sensed before, and the force of it, seeping into my lungs and gnawing at them as I drew closer, was darkness on an entirely different scale.
What if it wasn’t just one black mage? The thought passed through my mind, and with every new question that followed, my head seemed to twist into a dizzying knot.
It was made worse by the voice coming from behind me.
“Did you see that just now? Could a monster have appeared?”
“...I can’t judge that yet. We’re still too far away to make any decision.”
Honestly, I would have preferred it if he hadn’t followed me. I had never thought Adel would be of any help anyway, so it would have been faster if he had simply gone back down to request support after reporting that something was wrong.
But I couldn’t just send him away now that he had come this far, so I kept my mouth shut and pushed forward.
“Haah... but the difference in speed is pretty big. I’m running as hard as I can, too!”
Then he shouldn’t have followed me in the first place. I let out a thin breath and looked ahead again.
If I kept indulging in conversation like this, I might fail to learn anything useful at all. If I had my way, I would have knocked him unconscious and left him somewhere, but there was no time for that now.
I broke away branches that blocked my face and melted the snow slipping beneath my feet with mana as I ran on. Then, as I drew near the summit, the source of the boom slowly began to come into view.
The snow had been stained red, and at the sight of what could only have been beast’s blood, Adel gave a low groan.
“It’s a deer. Its belly... how could it have been torn apart like that?”
I looked at the deer’s body, split in two so violently that its innards had spilled out as well, and from the torn shape alone I realized this had not been the work of a black mage.
The body had been ripped apart irregularly and brutally, as though by sheer strength, and the marks pressed into both sides suggested the trace of whatever had done this to the deer.
For a moment I thought of the black giant I had seen before, but even that amount of power would not be enough to tear a deer apart like this.
Was it a creature made by a black mage? Or something else that had been stained by a black mage’s darkness?
While I studied the traces, Adel seemed to reach a conclusion of his own and spoke carefully.
“Aren’t these handprints trolls?”
“Trolls?”
“Three fingers... and four if you count the thumb, so it seems like a troll. Then was this not the work of a person but a monster? Still, wouldn’t that make too much noise?”
I had never seen a troll in person, so I couldn’t say for certain whether the sound had belonged to one, but what Adel said was not impossible.
A troll. I had certainly heard that trolls appeared on Verdeng Mountain from time to time.
I ran my fingers over the hilt of the sword in my hand. Trolls possessed a natural regenerative ability. No matter how deeply they were cut down by a blade, they would eventually heal unless the heart itself was struck.
If what had been tainted by darkness was a troll, could I still cut it down?
I shook my head. There was no point worrying about that yet. It would not be too late to judge once I had seen my opponent and measured its strength.
What mattered now was only discovering what had spread this darkness that made even breathing difficult, and who had done it.
As I began moving toward the summit again, Adel hurried after me.
#
For a moment, I forgot this was a snow-covered mountain when the summit opened before me and revealed a dense forest stretching in every direction.
It was a forest of fir trees, and the floor beneath their still-green boughs glittered emerald whenever stray light slipped through.
Inside the hollow trunk of a rotten, collapsed log lay the carcass of a beast. I quietly covered my nose with a hand at the smell of it, for the body had been gnawed beyond recognition.
It did not smell rotten. That meant it had been eaten only recently.
The rustling of dead leaves grated on my nerves. What if the sound drew the creature’s attention?
In this silent forest, even the smallest breath echoed back, so I needed to be careful with every movement I made.
“Shh.”
I raised a finger in warning. Adel looked a little strange, considering he seemed perfectly fine despite the thick mana constricting the air, but if his level was low, then stealth had to come first.
Crack.
When I took another step, a massive sound rose from somewhere far ahead, completely out of place in this forest.
It sounded like a tree breaking, and as far as I knew there was only one being on this mountain capable of snapping such a huge trunk.
I drew in a breath and fixed my gaze toward the source of the sound. I could feel mana there. The mana from the direction where the tree had broken was unmistakably darker than anything else.
It sucked the vitality from the forest and turned the leaking light into shadow.
It was something that should not have been here. In a place so full of life, it was something that had to be driven out.
But I couldn’t rush in blindly. I had to judge its strength and speed before I moved.
The reason I had gone straight for the black mage before had been because I had already measured his level through his mana, hadn’t it?
This was nothing like that now. My breath had risen so high it nearly reached my throat.
The hand gripping my sword was trembling in tiny spasms, and I drove the blade’s point into the ground before staring ahead.
“Sir Roman, listen carefully. Do not move rashly, no matter what. This isn’t an ordinary troll. It’s most likely a creature made by a black mage. Absolutely, under no circumstances, move recklessly.”
“...Understood. But if it really is a black mage?”
“Questions later. It’s coming.”
A dark shadow began to show itself from behind a massive tree.
Even from a glance, it looked nothing like a creature that belonged among the trees. The being seemed to turn the world dark around it, as if dusk itself were walking.
The ground shuddered with a heavy boom.
The snow layered on the trees was shaken loose, and the green beneath was laid bare as the trunk instantly began to wither.
Life vanished from the surroundings, and what emerged in its place was desolation. The snow melted away, and the earth began to crack as its vitality was drained.
The boom came again.
In the darkness where light had vanished, I saw those purple eyes.
They burned as if with fire, and the gaze looked as though it held an abyss within it.
What it held in its hand was an axe drenched in blood, and when I saw fragments of human flesh mixed into that blood, my brow tightened on its own.
Just how many people had it killed?
The tusks jutting from its mouth told me that it had once been a troll.
But the back that should have been hunched was now straight, and the skin that should have been green was a deep brown, making it hard to distinguish in the dark.
“...That is...”
Adel’s face stiffened.
The overwhelming presence pouring from the thing before us—my own hand was trembling on the sword hilt, so the terror he must be feeling was almost certainly close to fear itself.
The purple eyes wavered. What reflected in them was unmistakable fear, and I placed a hand on his shoulder before speaking quietly.
“I’ll go first. Don’t try to attack right away. We need to figure out what kind of opponent it is first.”
“N-no, I can do it too.”
“Sir Roman. This is not a joke.”
My cold stare fell on him. I disliked the fact that he seemed to think this could be solved simply by drawing a sword.
This was real combat. If that axe brushed him even once, it might split his body and kill him outright.
And yet here he was, stepping forward in this state of tension.
If he died, who would take responsibility for it? Me, because I had been with him? Absolutely not.
Still, I let out a bitter smile. Even after saying all that, there was only the faintest trace of fighting spirit in his eyes.
He wanted to prove himself, to show he could do something too, and that intent was plain in his face. I gave a small sigh at it, then nodded and looked back at the troll.
“...Do as you like. But if it gets too hard, you need to pull back.”
“I know that much. I’m an Expert too, after all.”
Blue light began to rise from his sword.
The ordinary color of mana possessed by people.
Whenever I saw the colors of mana that others emitted, so completely different from my own, I could not help wondering.
Flare—
But there was no use thinking about that now.
I cleared my mind and placed all my focus on the point of the sword in my hand. Soon, white flames burst along the blade and began illuminating part of the forest that had been swallowed by darkness.
The gaze met mine.
When those searing purple eyes locked onto me, I felt as though a spear had just pierced my heart, and I let out a sharp breath.
The pressure coming off that being was so intense that I thought it might be harder to face than anyone I had met so far, and my muscles began to contract on their own.
I bent my knees.
The air entering my lungs was drawn in by my muscles, and then I pulled forth every ounce of strength I could summon.
My beating heart received that strength and sent it rushing through my entire body once more.
One breath, two breaths. By the time the muscles in my legs had tensed during that instant of breathing,
crunch—
with a force that crushed even the rocks beneath my feet, my body launched forward.
White light flashed in my eyes as I watched the troll and began tracing my sword path.
Should I aim for the muscles at the lower right diagonal, toward its leg?
Once my decision was made, I called Adel’s name and swung my sword at the troll’s massive arm.
“Sir Roman!”
Perhaps I had cut before the troll could even react, because it jerked in surprise and pulled its body back.
I only briefly saw black smoke spilling from its gaping mouth before I turned my gaze and noticed Adel moving in the distance.
Could he move a little faster? The speed of his advance was so different from mine that I grit my teeth.
At that pace, he would only get in the way. I would have been more at ease if I had simply left him behind.
At that speed, the troll would surely notice him.
Just as I had thought, the troll caught Adel’s attack. Its shoulder muscles twitched.
The elbow drew back, and I could only watch as the arm shot out.
Even if I cut it with my sword, it was not an action I could stop.
That thick hide would only take a shallow wound from the sword I was using now.
“Kraaaah!”
Thud—
I let out a sigh at the sound of air being split.
The crack of bone, the spray of blood, the sound of something flying through the air, smashing into a tree, and collapsing to the ground.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I had told him to move carefully, hadn’t I?
Still, the one fortunate thing was that if he’d been struck by a fist, then he probably wouldn’t be dead yet.
Grrrrr—
I met the troll’s eyes.
I looked at my own reflection in those eyes, stripped of reason and seeking only blood and flesh.
With a sword in hand, I must have looked very much like a knight, because a faint laugh almost escaped me.
I flung the sword I held down to the ground.
It was not a skin I could cut through easily. If the attack had landed at all, that would have been one thing, but if I kept fighting with this sword and it broke, I would be the one in trouble.
What I pulled from my clothing was a sword reduced to nothing but a hilt. Then the flame erupted again. What shone brilliantly from within the shadows was light itself, and the blue blade emerged as fire began to cling to it.
I could see the fist. I caught the twitch of its muscles and stepped forward.
From this point on, if my concentration slipped even slightly, it would be me who got hurt.
The elbow, the shoulder, the fingers. Its gaze, the movement of its waist, the shift of its hips—all of it revealed the flow of its attack.
As the white flames burned brighter, those movements became clearer, and before long I realized I was meeting every one of them head-on.
The corner of my mouth twisted.
I gripped the sword in both hands. My breath came rough with the beat of my heart.
As the axe swung, a red arc came into view.
I ducked low and avoided it, then swung my sword in return. Flames surged.
They blazed more brilliantly than ever, and the fire that engulfed my entire body began to melt the snow around us. The troll’s body struck the blade and burst with blood.
I had expected it to regenerate at once, but the healing was strangely slow, and I narrowed my eyes.
Perhaps my mana was causing that effect. I took another step forward.
I trod on dead leaves, snapped branches beneath my feet.
Then I stepped again, and the snow crunched beneath me. And once more, my sword swept out.
White snow—when that snow was stained red with blood,
my sword drew a pure white line.
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